1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the production of slide fasteners, and more particularly to a device for holding a slider in position during threading or mounting onto a slide fastener chain.
2. Prior Art
In the manufacture of a slide fastener, a slider is held in position by a device while a pair of fastener stringers, each stringer having a row of coupling elements mounted on a stringer tape, is threaded through a Y-shaped channel in the slider; the coupling elements on one tape are interengaged with the coupling elements on the other tape as they pass through the slider.
A known slider holding device, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,685,814 issued Aug. 22, 1972, includes a housing having a support surface for supporting thereon a slider body upside down, a slit receptive of a pull tab hanging from the slider body, and a lever pivotally mounted in the housing and having an upper and a lower projection. The lever is pivotable between a slider-holding position in which the upper projection projects into the slit for engagement with an opening in the pull tab, and a slider-release position in which the upper projection is retracted out of the slit for releasing the pull tab and for allowing the pull tab to be inserted into the slit. The lever is urged to either the slider-holding position or the slider-release position in a known manner. The lower projection extends across the slit for being pressed downwardly by the free end of the pull tab when the latter is inserted into the slit. This downward pressing causes the lever to be pivotally moved to the slider-holding position. The prior art device requires a plurality of levers of different length for respectively holding pull tabs of different lengths. Thus a suitable one of the levers must be chosen depending on the length of the pull tab, which is laborious and time-consuming. Otherwise the prior device cannot be used for various kinds of sliders having pull tabs of different length.